There are
two uses of oak in the field of wine, one is the cork which is used as a
stopper and harvested from the bark of the Quercus suber every nine years. The other is the oak used to make wine
barrels.

The great French oak forests such as Nevers, Limousinand Tronçais were first used by Napoleon for
ship building purposes. Although very good for making ships, English oak is too
dense for making wine barrels.The oak
from warmer climates better allows the wines to breathe in the barrels.

Barrels made
by coopers are used for the storage and maturation of wine, beers, whisky and
vinegars. The wood can affect the flavour of wine and adds tannins. If the wine
can breathe this softens and develops the flavours.

In Bordeaux
the size of the barrel is 220 litres which gives a large surface area of wine
in contact with the wood. Only the best
and most expensive Chateaux can afford to use new oak each year. The used barrels
will be sold on to lesser chateaux after two years.

French oak
barrels are made by taking split wood which has been seasoned outdoors and then
constructing the staves into a barrel over a fire. A metal hoop is then forced over the barrel
which contracts when cool to hold the staves together and makes a watertight
container.

In America,
for wine and bourbon casks, the wood is not seasoned outside.It is kiln dried and sawn instead of being
split.This gives softer tannins and a
much more oaky vanilla taste to wine stored in them, such as Rioja.Many Scotch whisky distilleries will have
barrels made that are given to Sherry producers to use for a few years.They then get them back to store whisky in giving
the whisky its colour. Cognac aged by the docks in London ( a cool damp area )
takes on less colour from the wood hence the term very superior old pale .

In Cognac
the spirit is aged in Limousin oak.
Poor soil in the Limousin forest results in wood
that is at the far end of the scale in terms of looseness of grain. The release
of flavours in such wood is too aggressive for wine , but makes it ideal for spirits. As it rests
in the barrels there is an evaporation called ‘the Angels share,’ without this
the spirit would be too harsh as it softens it.

It is harvest time in many parts of Europe with a mixed
picture so we will look at how the weather affects vine growing during the
year. Ideally a very cold winter is required as this can kill bugs and disease
on the vines, then an early bud burst would be advantageous .Vines grown in
dark soils have an advantage here as the soil warms up faster than white chalky
soils and cold clay soils . This year we had an early bud burst but this
was followed by a sharp frost which if you are limiting the number of buds to
increase quality can reduce your crop considerably.

Next in the life cycle of the vine is the flowering, this
usually takes place about May June with gentle breezes wafting through the
vineyard although this year it rained cats and dogs giving a very uneven
flowering and therefore uneven fruit setting.

If it continues to rain all summer the vines will need
spraying several times to stop rot and mildew.

The grapes can and will ripen without bright sunshine and
will still ripen on overcast days it just takes a bit longer so in many
northern areas the harvest will be up to three weeks late.it is not just
sunlight on the grapes but sunshine on the leaves that help ripen the grapes

In the southern parts of Europe they have had the opposite problem
Too much heat and at high temperatures the vine will just shut down and if the
vines do not have canopy management i.e. leaves covering the grapes so that the bunches can become scorched.

There is a balance to be struck which does not seem to have happen
in Europe we need rainfall for the vines to grow and the grapes to swell and we
need sunlight to ripen the grapes but steadily over the summer to increase the
sugars and decrease the acidity. So it will be a mixed year this year with some
excellent wines being made but with the quantity lower than in previous years.
The one thing we can be certain of is that the price of a bottle of wine will
go up.

During the regular tastings run by Cumbria’s Master Sommelier Stephen Wilcock at the shepherds inn people have often asked about the origins of Champagne and how it became the wine of celebration. So with Christmas just around the corner and a good excuse to celebrate what could be better than a glass of Champagne .

The name derives from the Latin ‘campus’, ‘campania’ or field. In Old French this became ‘Champaign’; today, Champagne.

In the 1600 s we used to import wine from our nearest neighbour France and the only real method of transportation was by river, so the nearest wine region with access to a boat system was the Champagne region and the river of Marne which reaches the sea at le Havre.

The wine at this time was probably a white wine made from red grapes but without the cellar techniques we use today.

When the wine was brought up from the cellar to the table on a warm spring evening would resume its fermentation and become bubbly .

This appealed to the wine drinkers of the day and they asked for more of this sparkling wine .

So the French winemaking monks set about putting the sparkle into these wines. At this time some monks travelling from the south probably Spain came to visit the Champagne region and the stopper in their goats skin flask was made of cork. This enabled a stopper to be made that would keep the sparkle in the wine. In the Hautvilliers Abbey, a near-blind Benedictine monk named Dom Pierre Perignon was experimenting with the wine . He was the cellar master at the abbey and basically an accountant , he made up from his disability with his sight with a supreme palate. He was able to differentiate between grapes from different areas and their value but also he was able to blend the different grapes to build a superb wine ( now called assemblage).

Putting the still wine in a bottle it was possible to start a secondary fermentation by adding some more yeast and some sugar just enough to raise the alcohol by about 1% and give carbon dioxide to the wine . The fermentation was slow ( the longer the bubbles take to put in the longer they are to come out.) and took place in the deep chalk caves that the Romans excavated.

but the downside was that there were two other by- products one heat was allowed to dissipate by putting wooden lats between the bottles , and thicker glass meant fewer bottles exploded, and the other by-product was the dead yeast cells . this problem was that the dead yeast cells died and fell to the bottom on the bottle , this gave the wine a biscuity yeasty flavour but had to be got rid of before the wine was drunk .

This is where The "Veuve (Widow) Clicquot" in the early 1800s and at the age of 27 comes in she cut holes in her kitchen table and propped it against the wall allowing her to put bottles in horizontally and then gradually moving them to an upright position knocking the slight sediment and then the heavy sediment on top to the neck of the bottle . this enables the plug of sediment to be expelled without making the wine cloudy. So small bubles are suspended in the wine .When Dom Perignon first tasted the sparkle in his Champagne he said "Come quickly ! I'm tasting stars!"

It takes a long time to make a good bottle of Champagne and it should be savoured . Drink chilled but not too cold and in a tall flute glass to retain the bubbles.

The bubbles actually take alcohol in to the blood stream faster and so puts one in a party or celebratory mood faster .

This method of making Champagne i.e. fermented in the bottle is used in other areas of the world but not allowed to be called the closely guarded name of Champagne

The soil of Champagne is actually Kimmeridgean clay and it pops up again this side of the Channel in Kent allowing us also to make very good sparkling wine .

Othere noticeably areas of production are Italy with Prosseco, Spain with Cava ,Alsace and Loire that produce a more creamy mousse called Cremant and excellent sparklers from Franciacorta Italy .

In the early spring when the sap starts to rise in the vines
some of the colder vineyard areas have to take precautions. There is a risk of
frosts nipping the buds. A wine region that produces high quality wine such as
the Chablis region depends on older vines planted in well drained flinty clay
soil (kimmeridgian clay). These older vines send their roots deep, but on the
surface the vine is pruned hard back to leave only 6 buds, so that it will
produce quality rather than quantity.

The risk is that at the time the buds are about to burst a
frost could destroy the vine. These
vines could be forty years old, so ‘quelle’ disaster. Vineyards used to light fires to protect the
vines, but in these enlightened days this method is frowned upon. Now water
from a system of pipes buried under the top soil spray water onto the buds to
protect them using latent heat.

The Chablis wine growing region is classified as Burgundy
but is quite a way north, being halfway between Paris and Burgundy. The wine is
always white and is produced from the early budding Chardonnay variety (or in
this region called the Beaunois).

The area is centered around the town of Chablis and the
river Serein with the best vineyards just north of the village on a southwest-facing
slope. These are the grand crus and
there are seven of them Les Clos, Blanchots, Bougros, Vaudesir, Valmur, Preuses
and Grenouilles. There are forty Premier Cru vineyards and then many village
wines.

This region used to stretch as far as Dijon and has been
well known for wines since the 1400s. Its
proximity to the ready markets of Paris helped, until the disease phyloxera
struck. After phyloxera only the better areas were replanted with vines brought
back from the new world. However, since 1970, the area under vine has
quadrupled. A new area has been planted,
called ‘Petit Chablis’ producing wine
that is lighter and less distinguished than the Crus which are wines worth
laying down. With their flinty dryness
these wines are a perfect match for oysters or Chabichou cheese.